A razor thin majority said the government should continue to carefully monitor 99 percent of Americans

Just over half of the U.S. House of Representatives approve of the federal government spending billions to police not only terrorists and criminals, but also snoop on the lives of the 98+ percent of Americans. The razor thin majority argues that to be free of terror, Americans must be willing to give up their freedoms and rights -- including the right to privacy.

I. Libertarian Effort to Restore Privacy is Shot Down in Congress

A proposed amendment to the U.S. Defense Appropriations Bill (H.R. 2397), an annual measure to fund the defense and intelligence agencies, would have "turned off Big Brother" by scaling back spying by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), who tracks the movements of smartphone-using Americans on a daily basis.

In short, Republicans in the House appear to be mostly in support of President Obama and Senate Democrats on the issue, and in opposition of their libertarian colleagues. Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) was a powerful proponent of federal spying spending within his party's ranks. He characterizes people who oppose the spying, such as NSA leaker Edward Snowden as "traitors".

Republicans in the House have largely supported Obama's spying efforts. [Image Source: AP]

I’m not concerned [with the casualty rate]. My belief is that when you are in a war — and we are in a war — the idea is to kill as many of the enemy as you can [even if the enemy is your own people].
...
There’s evil people in the world. Drones aren’t evil, people are evil. We are a force of good and we are using those drones to carry out the policy of righteousness and goodness.

III. President Chastises House Democrats for Trying to Limit His Spying on Americans

President Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, praised House Republicans' decision to support the ongoing spying on Americans. In a previous statement Mr. Carney (on the President's behalf) had warned:

We oppose the current effort in the House to hastily dismantle one of our Intelligence Community’s counterterrorism tools. This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process. We urge the House to reject the Amash Amendment, and instead move forward with an approach that appropriately takes into account the need for a reasoned review of what tools can best secure the nation.

President Obama has had no tolerance for his party colleagues' efforts to stop him from spying. [Image Source: AP]

None of funds made available by this Act may be used by the National Security Agency to—(1) conduct an acquisition pursuant to section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 for the purpose of targeting a United States person; or (2) acquire, monitor, or store the contents (as such term is defined in section 2510 of title 18, United States Code) of any electronic communication of a United States person from a provider of electronic communication services to the public pursuant to section 501 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

However, many have pointed out that the bill in question already forbids content (e.g. voice conversation) collection on non-suspects. Hence, the amendment is essentially a false flag that does nothing. It does not limit the collection (and spending on collection) of metadata, including location tracking records, as Rep. Amash's amendment would have.

Rep. Amash (R) vowed not to let the defeat stop his efforts to restore law abiding Americans' right to privacy. He and Rep. Conyers have introduced a new bill called the LIBERT-E Act (H.R. 2399), which would offer similar scalebacks to his H.R. 2397 amendment. That Bill is currently in the committee stage.

House Republican Justin Amash isn't afraid to defy his colleagues and yet again try to fight for American's right to privacy. [Image Source: Getty Images]